


sounds of peace

by Areiton



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Baking, Banshee Lydia Martin, Derek Hale & Lydia Martin Friendship, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Derek Hale, Healthy Relationships, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Lydia-centric, M/M, Unconventional Relationship, sterek, writing as therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 00:21:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11978175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: The end of the world, it seems, is a small cabin in the middle of nowhere Washington, at the end of a dirt road and surrounded on all sides by trees. It feels isolated and cozy and you sit on the front steps as the wind moves quiet through the pine, and for the first time in years, you don’t feel like you are being chased.





	sounds of peace

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, disclaimers:  
> Lydia and Derek and Stiles are not together in the sense they have sex. At all.  
> There are, however, many kinds of love. 
> 
> This story came about because everything that Lydia goes through hurts me. We see Derek and Stiles escaping Beacon Hills and getting to heal, and I wanted that for Lydia.  
> I wanted to give her the fluffy peace she deserved. <3

When you get in your car, you don’t really know where you’re going. You feel like you haven’t known where you were going for years—maybe since that night when Stiles held you on the dance floor and Peter bit you on an empty field.

You don’t know where you’re going. You only know the girl you were that night died on that field, and sometime you wish you had died with her.

 

~

 

You drive for hours, the silence of your car a heavy blanket and it doesn’t itch, doesn’t burn like pressure in your throat, it’s just quiet and almost, almost peaceful.

 

 

~

 

You drive for so long you begin to wonder if you are going anywhere. Or if you’ll just drive until the road ends and live there, alone at the end of the world.

You think it might be quiet there, and even when you scream, no one would hear you, so maybe that would be nice. You smile and keep driving.

 

~

 

The end of the world, it seems, is a small cabin in the middle of nowhere Washington, at the end of a dirt road and surrounded on all sides by trees. It feels isolated and cozy and you sit on the front steps as the wind moves quiet through the pine, and for the first time in years, you don’t feel like you are being chased.

It is almost, almost, anticlimactic when the black wolf pads out of the woods.

 

~

 

You don’t know when Derek Hale became synonymous with _safe_ in your mind.

You think it was before Mexico. Maybe it was like Stiles. There was never a definitive moment—it was all of them, tiny pebbles of moments, building one on top of the other until you realize the bedrock of your life is these two men you never counted on, never expected, and you don’t know how to trust without them there to steady you, you don’t know how to walk through the nightmares without Stiles there to smile back at you, without Derek to growl and glare and feed you because under all his gruff bluster, he cares so deeply it hurts.

Derek left first, and Stiles followed and you get why they did, why they had to, but sometimes you are so lonely you scream.

Sometimes you are so lonely you can’t breathe to scream.

 

~

 

You recognize him, as he stares at you. He’s bigger than you remember, and his expression is startled, but not angry, and he whines as he trots to where you sit, buries his nose in your hair and you hold on tight, tighter than you’ve let yourself hold on to anything since Stiles left.

You cling to him, and hide your tears and you don’t know why you’re crying, when you are so relieved to finally have found what you lost.

 

~

 

You wake up in bed, and you don’t remember getting there. You don’t remember much from the past few days, only endless aimless driving and a soothing silence that gathers around you still, and—

“You’re awake,” he says and you look at him.

Derek is barefoot, sweats low on his hips, wearing a Beacon Hills lacrosse t-shirt that make you pause and he shifts.

“Where is he?” you ask.

 

~

 

You can’t remember a time when Stiles Stilinski wasn’t on the edge of your awareness.

He was the awkward and eager little boy who watched you in elementary. The furious, grieving boy who started fights and watched you in middle school. The brilliant, hyperactive sarcastic boy who made people laugh and watched you in high school.

Stiles was an amusement and then a thing to pity and finally an annoyance, the only boy in school who could compete with your intellect and he didn’t even _try._

He wasn’t the only one who watched you, but he was the first to _see_ you.

He terrified you.

And then your world changed. And when everyone else—Jackson, your friends, even your dad, Allison—all faded away, taken or leaving by choice. Stiles didn’t. Stiles _stayed._

Stiles saw you and even when what you saw left you shaking, he never did.

 

~

 

You spend two days there, and most of it is spent sleeping. Derek gives you space, but you wake twice to find him curled at the foot of the bed in his wolf form, and you rub his ears, smiling when he leans into the touch.

He makes food and gives you books, and doesn’t talk, much, but he listens, when you do.

You don’t, very often. After years of screaming and _talking_ , the silence is peaceful and Derek, sitting on the other end of the couch in his socks and messy hair and reading glasses, is quietly comforting.

 

~

 

Derek bakes the third day you spend in the cabin, a kind of humming energy filling the little space, and you catch him smiling, at nothing at all, as he piles warm cookies and fresh bread on the counter. You sit near him, almost as tall as he is when you perch on the counter, as he stirs chicken and potatoes in a pan, the scent of garlic and rosemary turning the cabin savory after the sugar and chocolate and butter filled it all day.

He smiles at you, and you can feel the same restless excitement.

But you hang back, nervous in Derek’s oversized tshirt that hangs to your knees, as he bounds out of the cabin to meet the Jeep that trundles up the drive at sunset.

The cabin smells divine, like home, warmth, peace, and the wind is still, only the low call of an owl filling the silence, as they walk back up to the house and Stiles smiles at you, wide and happy.

He opens his arms and you are crying even before you throw yourself into him, these deep wrenching sobs that _hurt_ , and his arm is around your waist, holding you impossibly close, his fingers tangled in your hair as he whispers against your ear, stead even over your crying, _“_ Shh, shhh. It’s ok. You’re ok, now. You’re safe.”

 

~

 

Derek herds you and Stiles inside and you curl into Stiles as you cry, as he hovers close behind, until he huffs and settle on the couch and drags you both into him.

You can hear the low whine he’s giving off, the almost constant sound of distress that makes you ache and Stiles, holding you both now, murmuring quiet reassurance to you, to Derek, until you finally sleep, held by them, sung to sleep by the quiet noise of their caring.

 

~

 

It’s like a dam breaks, and you can’t stop crying. Derek feeds you and Stiles stays close, but neither push you to talk, just linger close enough to touch, to support, and push boxes of Kleenex at you when you sniffle. Some days, you sit on the couch with Derek’s fingers sifting idly through your hair, and stare at the book your reading, silent tears slipping down your face.

Some days you walk until you’re lost in the pine trees, and crumple, sobbing, raw and ugly, until a giant black wolf pads up with a dark-haired boy and they curl around you as the day turns.

Other days, you don’t leave your bed, lying almost catatonic as you stare dry eyed and blank, and Stiles crawls over you to work in your bed, tapping at his computer and muttering to himself until you turn to him and peer with gritty eyes at his screen.

You cry until your head aches and your nose is raw and you apologize, stuffy and embarrassed and Stiles rolls his eyes as Derek stares at you, startled.

“Don’t—” he shakes his head, frustration in his eyes.

“Lydia,” Stiles says, picking up his broken thought, “don’t ever apologize for being human. Not here. Not to us.”

You still think you should, but after that you don’t apologize, and you don’t hide from them, as often.

 

~

 

“Why did you come here?”

You shrug and pick at your nails. It’s the first time in you can’t remember how long that they weren’t perfectly manicured and polished. They’re bitten down and jagged and you worry one now.

“I didn’t mean to.” You look at him, and see nothing but acceptance and understanding, unwavering love.

“I just drove until the world ended,” you say, and he nods like that makes sense.

Maybe to Stiles it does.

 

~

 

You always knew, somewhere in your heart, that you and Stiles were never going to work.

You tried, you both _tried_ , after the Hunt.

But he was already two steps out the door and you were too scared to think of leaving, and there was the real truth.

Derek.

So you tried.

It wasn’t that you didn’t love him, and gods knew Stiles loved you to an almost unhealthy degree.

But it wasn’t right, wasn’t enough, never quite _fit._  

You used to wish it would. You fucked pretty boys with dangerous eyes and bloody hands and wished it could be the loud, laughing boy whose gentle hands held you safe. You pushed him away and hoped he’d pull you back and every time he did, you sighed in relief.

But it changed. He did. You did. The whole world changed, or maybe just the tiny violent one you lived in, and in that tiny violent world, there wasn’t a place for something as fragile and beautiful as what Stiles and you could have been.

 

~

 

“How did you find him?”

The black wolf is lazing in the sun, his mouth hanging open, and he opens his eyes, bright blue shining at you when you ask the question.

Stiles grins, a soft private thing you almost look away from, as he watches Derek. “I never lost him, Lydia.”

 

~

 

The story comes out in slow stages, because this is Derek and Stiles and for as much as he talks, Stiles rarely says anything he doesn’t want to say.

You learned, years ago, to read between the lines, to read what was important, spliced into the meaningless babble that makes Derek’s eyes go soft and crinkly, that makes you smile into your wine because it’s comfortable and familiar and better than the death song you’ve been screaming for years.

Derek came here first.

“It was my family’s. Sometimes wolves need time away from the pack—we kept this for them.”

It was a year after Mexico, in the middle of the nightmare with the Dread Doctors.

After, when they got Stiles back from the Hunt, and he left for the East Coast, Derek shut up the tiny house and followed him. They’d stayed close, despite the distance, and they needed the pack feel the other provided.

“We knew we’d come back, though,” Stiles says, leaning against Derek.

“How?” you ask, curious.

How did they know where they belong? How can you know where you do?

Stiles gives a helpless shrug. “It’s home.”

 

~

 

They give you the spare bedroom. Derek fusses around it anxiously, smoothing your blanket and adjusting your hairbrush, frowning to himself until you finally catch his wrist in your hand and he stills.

He’s a werewolf, with bone breaking strength and your touch is light, barely there, and it stills him, completely.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, and he makes that low distressed whine that hurts your heart.

“It’s so….empty. _You_ aren’t here.”

You stare at him, until his expression, all furrowed worried brows and big anxious eyes, swims and he says your name, etched in worry.

You smile through the tears and shake your head, wave the wolf away.

But after that, you feel it. The quiet security of being home.

 

~

 

There’s a peacefulness here that you didn’t think existed anymore. Sometimes you look at him, and you feel guilty.

“Do you miss it?” you ask, quiet, after a month.

Stiles shakes his head and Derek’s hand tightens on the nape of his neck, tugging Stiles closer.

It’s answer enough.

 

~

 

It wasn’t all bad.

There were the bad years, during high school, where every day was a battle and you sank from the girl everyone wanted to be, to the girl who screamed for the dead, the girl who wandered through the forest naked, who was attacked, who watched her best friend die.

But there was Stiles, and Derek. There was Scot, with his earnest concern that wandered so easily.

And there was Jordan, with his soft eyes and heavy hands, with the warm heat that held you close.

Jordan was yours, in every way that mattered, and when you lay in his arms in the dark, you felt whole.

 

~

 

You’re screaming before you wake, and you can _feel_ it, still, the crackling fire that tore into him, the awful wail that burned at your throat as you watched him fall, the tears searing your cheeks as you wailed and wailed and wailed.

Movement jerks you from your nightmare and your scream breaks off into a breathless squeak as Derek scoops you off your bed.

He carries you to the little loft where he sleeps with Stiles, and tucks you into the big bed. Stiles tugs you close, curling around you as Derek moves to turn the lights down, sliding into bed and snaking an arm over your waist.

It’s hot between them, and almost smothering, and all you can do is lie in still silence and breath in their comfortable nearness.

“Sleep now,” Derek grumbles and you bite your lip. Tuck yourself under Stiles’ chin and surrender to sleep.

 

~

 

The next night, when you rise to go to bed, Derek catches your hand and tugs you to their bed. You smile as he settles next to you with his book, an arm around your shoulder keeping you close to him until you drift off to sleep.

 

~

 

You start writing.

They both stay busy during the day, Derek cooking and tapping at his computer, updating the blog he maintains for the network of packs in North and South America, Stiles yelling into a headset in front his computer.

For a while, you wander the woods, alone, lost in your own thoughts, and they’re circling, this endless loop that makes you itch to scream.

So you write. Derek sees you, scribbling on paper you snag from his printer, and he digs up a leather journal that he passes you silently after dinner, while Stiles argues with himself about the latest superhero movie.

You smile your thanks at him, and he brushes a hand over your shoulder as he carries your empty drink back to the kitchen.

It helps, writing. Sometimes, your mind runs faster even than Stiles’ mouth, an endless race that makes you _smart_ and you hate it because you can’t slow down long enough to put things together.

To make them make sense.

Sometimes, you think that’s the only reason you survived everything—Peter and Allison and the nogitsune, the dread doctors and Eichan house. You never could slow down long enough to sort through everything and it wasn’t until after, when the last threat died away and Jordan lay dead in your arms, and your throat was raw from screaming, that it all hit you.

You think it’s probably hitting you still, that maybe it always will.

But.

It helps, writing your thoughts down.

 

~

 

“You wouldn’t have recognized me, before,” you tell him. “I was the girl everyone wanted to be, the girl everyone wanted to be with. I was vicious and stupid and petty and mean. I hated myself.”

The wind is quiet, and you lean against him, head propped on his thigh, staring at the still branches.

“I’m glad you never met her,” you whisper, ashamed suddenly, of how horrible you were. You wiggle a little, hiding your face as much as you can and ache to find Stiles and apologize.

Derek’s hand on your hip stills you, and his eyes hold you steady as he stares at you, patient and understanding. “I will always recognize you, sweetheart.”

 

~

 

Some nights, Stiles pulls Derek away, with careful apologetic looks at you and you turn the lights off and curl on the couch, in your bed. You can hear them, in the silence, the whispers that you can’t make out and the bitten off groans, the laughter and brush of skin, the slick sound of sex and Derek’s hoarse shout, near the end.

You don’t need that to tell you they’re together. It’s written into the fabric of the cabin, in Derek’s gaze on Stiles, in the way they move around each other. It makes sense, like the end of a long story, fitting and satisfying and pleasing in a way that makes you ache, just a little.

You think that once upon a time, you had a love like that, and it died in flames.

You smile when Stiles drags Derek to their bed, when you walk in from a walk and find them red faced and sweaty, when Derek carries a sex-dazed Stiles from the woods.

You didn’t get to keep your love story. But maybe they do.

 

~

 

You wake up screaming, and Derek catches you close.

Stiles is gone and you fell asleep on the couch and he’s there, murmuring nonsense in your ear that is soothing you even before you shake free of the nightmare. You can taste the terror on you tongue, feel the scream in your throat, but it fades under the weight of his hand on your shoulder and smoothing through your hair, his lips pressing promises against your forehead.

“Do you want me to call him?” he asks, and you shake your head. He sighs and settles you closer and you sigh into him.

“You were dreaming of Peter.”

It’s not a question, but you nod against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, the words twisted up with grief and guilt and you tighten your grip on him, press harder into his space.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” you say, firmly, and for a moment, you sound like the girl you were in Beacon Hills.

 

~

 

“Where does he go?”

It’s the second time Stiles has left since you arrived here, a trip that seems to happen every five weeks, three days where you and Derek are anxious and quiet, with long walks through the woods, and endless nights on the couch.

By unspoken agreement you don’t go to their bed when Stiles is absent.

“Work. He can do most from here, but every once in a while, he has to go in and be deposed, meet with his superiors.”

You look at him, a question on your face and Derek smiles, gently. “He’s consulting with the FBI. He was only ever going to be a cop, Lydia.”

“What did you want to be, when you were growing up?” you ask, curious suddenly.

He laughs, a sound that’s becoming familiar, and you’re delighted to see a blush crawling up his cheeks. “I wanted to build furniture. My dad did, and he was amazing at it. I used to sit in his workshop and watch. I loved it.”

You lean against the porch and don’t whisper the truth.

That you only wanted to be safe and brilliant, and that you don’t think you can ever be safe and most days you feel like the stupidest girl alive.

 

~

 

You watch when Stiles returns, from the doorway of the cabin, as Derek bounds down the steps, jerking Stiles out of the car and into his arms. You almost look away, because the way he holds Stiles, close precious safe sheltered, _hurts_.

You do look away when he leans up, a little, finds Stiles lips, in a kiss that is wet and deep and hungry, pouring everything you know they feel into a kiss that you feel wrong seeing. You turn away, your fingers running over the smooth wood, a splinter digging into your thumb and you focus on that tiny pain, instead of the ache of loneliness in squeezing around your chest.

Strong arms slide around your waist and you lean into Stiles as he hooks his chin over your shoulder, and mumbles, “Miss me?”

“Never,” you tease, gently and he whines.

Derek nudges you both inside and his gaze is fond and warm and settled and you sigh, drag Stiles to the couch and as he groans in relief, settling you against his side you echo his question. “Miss me?”

“Always.”

 

~

 

You love them.

It’s not a revelation, it’s a simple truth you’ve known for what feels like years.

The revelation is that you don’t want what they have.

You love them, and they love you, and it’s different, so different from the way they love each other.

It’s enough.

It’s everything.

 

~

 

The Sheriff hugs you hard, while Stiles and Derek unload his car.

“Are they taking care of you, Red?”

Derek pauses, throws a worried look at you where you stand and you smile, the arch little thing that you used to rule Beacon Hills high school. Stiles gives him a curious stare and nudges his side and you laugh, drawing the sheriff into the cabin. “The very best care,” you promise.

 

~

 

It’s quiet and peaceful, having the sheriff there for Thanksgiving. He sleeps in your room, and if it bothers him that you sleep between Stiles and Derek, he doesn’t say.

You keep waiting, nerves strung tighter and tighter, as you help Derek with the food and Stiles argues with his father in the living room about a football game neither are really watching.

“He doesn’t care,” Derek says, softly.

You look at him and then back at the Sheriff and Stiles.

“Why not?”

“I’m seven years older than Stiles, you know. And the sheriff arrested me a few times, before I showed up and Stiles left down with me. You know what he told me?”

You shake your head and he smiles fondly down at the pie crust he’s rolling out. “He said Stiles was a smart man and if he wanted to love me, that was good enough for him. That he trusted his son to love well.”

You’re silent and he let’s you think, as he carefully lays the crust over the cherry pie. It’s only when he’s turn his attention to the cranberry sauce that he looks at you.

“Stiles loves you. The Sheriff trusts that.”

 

~

 

There are, after all, so many kinds of love.

And this one, this grounding steady thing that feels like home…

You could live forever in this kind of love.

 

~

 

The day you realize you can’t stay is the day Stiles leaves.

Derek waits until he’s gone, the Jeep trundling down the road like it does every five weeks, and you realize this is the sixth time he’s left you both here.

You’ve been here for months.

Derek spends hours decorating the little cabin for Christmas, drags you into helping him, and you smile, your hands deep in the branches of a tree and it sits heavy, like a weight you can’t shed.

You sleep the night through, most nights, even the ones you don’t spend in the comforting warmth of their bed.

You can speak of Peter without shaking.

And this—this little house at the end of the world is not yours.

It never was, and the almost eight months you’ve spent hiding here, learning to breath—it’s stolen.

This life is theirs and you are only a guest in it. You have only ever been a guest.

 

~

 

“There’s something wrong, Stiles.”

You lean your head against the window, and try not to cry, listening to Derek pace in their loft, near the bed you want to think of as _yours_.

“No. You need to come home. There’s something wrong.”

 

~

 

You came to the little house with nothing, only the dirty clothes you ran in and tears on your cheeks and the trauma of a life you don’t want to go back to.

Leaving is harder. There are the books you’ve stolen and Derek has given you, the flowers that hang dried in the corner of your room, gifts from them in the heat of summer. Clothes and shoes and pictures. Spun glass and braided necklaces, old musty books and tiny paintings of screaming women and thick math books—all trinkets Stiles hands to you when he returns from his trips, grinning wide and bright, that mean so much more than the expensive gifts he gave you when you were in school.

There are the blankets Derek bundles you in, and the shirts you stole from him, and the painting you’ve been working on that you can’t bear to leave, of the cabin and the forest.

Your little home at the end of the world.

 

~

 

Stiles is sitting on the hood of your car, and Derek lurks a few feet away, when you emerge. He watches you, and you glare at Derek. He doesn’t even have the good grace to shrug, staring back defiant and unapologetic.

“Are you leaving because you want to?” Stiles asks, his voice empty. “Or because you think you have to.”

There’s snow coming down, and your teeth are chattering and you want so badly to go back inside, and crawl into their bed, and never leave.

“You—Stiles, you have a life. You were happy and I crashed into it. It’s time for me to go.”

Derek makes a noise that’s part growl, and all hurt. Stiles slides off your car.

“If you want to leave, we won’t stop you. Even though we want you to stay—we won’t stop you. But if you’re leaving because you think you have to. You’re an idiot.”

“ _Stiles.”_ Derek grits out but he doesn’t say anything else. For a long moment, no one does, and there is only silence.

In all the months you’ve been here, you have never felt the noise of death, never felt a scream pressing at your teeth.

You don’t want to go back to a world that death touches.

You let your bag fall and Derek is there, catching it, catching you, before it hits the snow, and Stiles catches you in his arms, muttering, “you idiot, you beautiful _idiot_ ” against your hair as Derek shushes you both.

 

~

 

“Lydia—”

“How long? How long do you want me to stay?”

“ _Always.”_

 

_~_

 

The cabin glows at the end of the road, and you smile at it, leaning forward in the seat next to Stiles.

You only go with him two or three times a year, and only because you have to meet with other academics on occasion.

Derek is sitting on the porch, and you smile as he bolts off it as Stiles parks the Jeep and Derek is there, pulling you out of the car, wrapping you in his arms.

Your hand tingles from Stiles’ tight grip on it, the last half hour of the drive home.

Derek hugs Stiles, kisses him briefly as snow falls around you, and you lead them back inside, and shut the door on the night.

 

~

 

There’s a house, a small cozy cabin, at the end of a road. The first time you drove up to it, it felt like the end of the world.

Now, as you relax and watch Derek kiss Stiles and murmur, “Welcome home.”

You bask in knowing this is where your world begins.


End file.
